[A note from Mr. Jones early in 1949 reports a crop of 1,836 pounds of chestnuts harvested from his 21 trees in 1948, the largest yield to date. His ML No. 2 tree produced 165 pounds.]
Nuts on a few of my trees begin ripening the latter part of August, but September is the heavy month, with some extending to the middle of October. Their early ripening period while the weather is usually hot and dry, I think tends to cause damage to nuts from the effects of the hot sun and rapid drying. Damage to the nuts and consequent spoilage can be kept at a minimum if they are gathered promptly, which should be daily.
+Preparing Chestnuts for Market+
Here is how I generally handle my crop. As soon as the nuts are gathered I put them in a container with water and remove the nuts that float. This eliminates practically all spoiled nuts and those beginning to spoil. Those that sink are then placed in coarse mesh burlap bags (about 25 lbs. to the bag) which are tied near the top. These bags are laid on a slatted platform under a shade tree and pressed out flat, so nuts will not be thicker than 2 or 3 inches. These bags are thoroughly wet with water once or twice daily, depending on the weather, until I can carry them to cold storage and store at 30°F., or they are marketed fresh, advising buyer of the perishable nature of these nuts. Last year my nuts kept excellently in cold storage, and after remaining there about six weeks had dried sufficiently to keep much better after taking out than when they were fresh.
Nuts for planting purposes can be kept in excellent condition for several weeks by spreading them thinly between layers of damp sphagnum moss and storing in a cool place. This cannot be allowed to get very wet or sprouting will begin. While holding the nuts out of cold storage I attempt to keep sufficient moisture available so the nuts are not allowed to dry much, and yet have plenty of ventilation to keep them from heating or souring. Until I began using this method, a large percentage of my nuts began spoiling soon after gathering, which caused me much discouragement, as I did not want to offer such a product for sale. Since then my losses still run around 12%, but this could be reduced still further by more prompt gathering and by the elimination of several trees which retain nuts in the burs to a large extent.
I have been able to dispose of my nuts quite easily in near-by Columbus, Ga. and for the last few years have had quite a demand for nuts to use in planting.
My orchard as a whole has been very healthy, showing no blight signs that I can detect, although there is little chance of exposure to blight in my section. One tree is slowly dying, which may be due to cold injury, as it comes into leaf early and also ripens very early. So far I have noticed no damage from chestnut weevils. As my trees are seedlings, there is quite a bit of variation in size of nuts and production of individual trees.
+Undesirable Traits in Seedling Trees+
I might mention some undesirable traits which I notice in my trees. First, I would place retention of nuts in the burs as the worst trouble. This is quite bad in five or six of my trees. Next, nuts too dry and loose in the hull at time of falling, which is present in four or five trees, some of which retain nuts in the burs and some which do not. The dry textured nuts seem to spoil more easily than plump well filled ones. Some trees produce too small nuts but the trees which produce extra large nuts do not usually yield nearly so heavily as those producing small to medium size nuts. I consider too early ripening as undesirable, for those that ripen later are usually better keepers, but this does not always hold true as some of the later ripening ones are also poor keepers.
This year my trees have an excellent crop of burs and show promise of a good average yield on each tree. Considering all things, I am highly pleased with my Chinese chestnuts and believe they have a good future in our section if no greater troubles arise than I now know of although there is much room for improvement.